Google+ Rant Analyzed

Let’s say you invent and launch a product. This must mean you have faith in it, right? In theory, you will be the first one using your product to show others that it will enhance your life or make it easier.

Take Mark Zuckerberg for example. Founder of Facebook, blah blah blah, but he is a great example of this because he actively uses his own product, thus promoting continual growth. I mean really, who else gets 476,806 “likes” to their newest Facebook status? Who even has that many friends anyway?

In contrast, while Google+ emerged to compete with the Facebook way of social networking, their growth may have already passed that “honeymoon” phase as far back as late July. This could be caused by several factors, including a confusing user interface or simple apathy toward another social networking site. Or, users could be asking themselves this question: If the Google management doesn’t even use Google+, why should I?

This question becomes even more relevant given Michael DeGusta’s recent correlational study of Google management and the activity on their Google accounts. The graphic below demonstrates the lack of use by everyone in Google management from the CEO to the Board Members to a Co-Founder—what’s more is that the Executive Director of Google doesn’t even have a Google+ account!

And, what may or may not be a coincidence, Steve Yegges, a frustrated Google employee accidentally (or maybe not?) sent out a 5,000-word rant about Google+ to all his 2,000 followers. What was originally intended to be a bitter diatribe about the product’s inefficiency and lack of forethought turned into a great big public display of un-affection for the product. The most interesting paragraph to me was when Yegges states, “Facebook is successful because… there are hundreds or maybe thousands of different high-quality time sinks available, so there’s something there for everyone,” while “Google+ is a knee-jerk reaction, a study in short-term thinking.”

I do not intend to portray Steve Yegges as a traitor to his beloved Google country, but rather to show that perhaps Google+ has some things it needs to fix before it can become the social media marketing powerhouse that was initially envisioned. Besides, Yegges did indirectly say that “[he] really [does] want Google to be successful.” So, despite all his observed weaknesses in Google’s system, maybe there will come a day when even they will “eat their own dogfood.”